Birmaflorabamadesta (Birmingham, Florabama and Destin)

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Well I hate to do it, but I have to start out this blog with some bad news. Matt and I have gotten in a really big fight and decided that after Costa Rica we’re just going to come home. We will have plenty of time to travel, were still young.
SNAP!
Just joshin, we’re still having a terrific time ☺ Ok seriously I’ll start writing now…

We had our trip planned all the way up to New Orleans, so we had to decide whether to stay along the gulf coast or go up into Alabama to see Birmingham. We decided on Birminham. Honestly, Alabama wasn’t the most exciting state we’ve been to yet, and there wasn’t much happening in Birmingham. After a 6 hour drive there, we decided to go to the Civil Rights Museum (that’s pretty much the only thing our handy-dandy “Lonely Planet” travel book said there was to do) It was actually a really interesting museum, no the most “feel-good” of all museums, but we were very intrigued and stayed there for a good 2 ½ hours. What made it even more interesting is that the notorious 16th Street Church was right across the street. (This is the church that the KKK bombed in the 60’s, killing 4 young girls) It was pretty moving to see it. After some lunch in a park and jumping on the internet in a local Panera, we decided that Birmingham was just to crazy for us, so we were off.
We got the on road with a vague idea of where we were going, Mobile, maybe? After a few hours driving South, I found a cool little bar called “Florabama” on the Florida/Alabama state line along the Gulf Coast. We decided to bag Mobile and go there, instead. We stopped at a restaurant for some delicious rolls and a scrumptious salad (eating road food can get pretty greasy, so it was nice to have some leafy greens) and then made our way to FLORABAMA! Sure enough, right when you pass the Alabama State Sign, look to your right and there it is! It was a pretty divey place, but you could already hear the music from the live bands outside, and tons of people were making their way in, so we at least had to see what this crazy place was all about. The second we got inside, we see a room full of drunk 40-something hill-billies jamming out to a live band playing 80’s music. AWESOME! After looking around a little bit more, we discovered this was a great place for people watching, every breed of white people you cold imagine were there. Anything from trailer trash to your millionaire farmer. We had to stay. It was a night full of Bud Light Limes and Kamikazies. After some dancing, some chillin on the beach and meeting some new people, we headed out to the Waffle House right across the street! (I swear these things are EVERYWHERE out here!!) We had parked our car in a parking lot across the street from this bar, so after our tummies were happy with the strawberry waffles, we went to pass out.
The next morning we made our way to try and find a gym that we could work off some of the previous night’s booze and have a shower. This was a lot harder than it should have been. We pulled into a town about an hour from Florabama with a Lifetime Fitness that supposedly had a free trial memebership for a day. We got to the parking lot and decided a nap was in order before heading in. One hour later, we approached this gym that was located on the top floor of a business-type building. It was impossible to get into, and after about 20 minutes our determination wore off and we finally realized that you had to have a membership key in order to reach the second floor because it was a Sunday and not a week-day. DUMB. It seems like a lot of towns we have been running across pretty much shut down on Sundays. So that plan was out the door and we decided to just make our way to a beach town called Destin in Florida.
My friend Shannon told me about this place when we saw her in Dallas, saying that it was a necessity for us to go there to see it’s beautiful beaches. After a short drive, we started seeing sand that looked like snow, it was the whitest sand Ive ever seen. We pulled into Destin and thought it was pretty sweet. A total tourist town, but it had absolutely beautiful beaches with clear blue water, lots of nice hotels, restaurants and things to do. I had found this camp sight online that that was in Destin that looked amazing. It’s called Henderson State Park and was right on the beach and is voted as one of Americas top Camp Sighs, so we had our hearts set on it. Right away we made our way to the camp sight as a walk-in to try and nab a site. We were told that the campsight was full, but to come back again in an hour. So we messed around for a bit and came back, still no luck, so they said to come back in 2 ½ hours. We went for a run on the beach (lets just say this beach is not appropriate for running on, all you do is sink!) washed ourselves off and chilled on the beach for a bit. We rushed back to the campsight and were thrilled to hear that a sight had opened up! I think at that point we were more excited to take showers than anything. We pulled our little SUV into one of this place’s huge camp sights and made our way to the showers. We made our way out to have dinner, all we wanted was seafood on the beach. We found a great place and Matt had the most abundant single serving of crab legs and shrimp I’ve ever seen, I still don’t know how he ate it all! I had some scallops and we were happy ☺ We then walked around this line of shops and bars on the harbor and decided to go to the same restaurant we had eaten dinner at to watch some Karaoke. Let me just say I love watching grown-ups do try and sing all “good,” it never works and just cracks me up. The line up consisted of a Pirate and his Pirate wife, some 40 year old groupies and two drunk kids singing to Christina Agulera. We hung out for an hour or so and decided to head out and try and find this wet-t-shirt contest that we had seen on some flyers earlier. We couldn’t find it so decided to go get some Dip N’ Dots instead. We were ready to call it a night after that so we headed back to our camp sight. The next morning I dragged matt out for a good workout on the beach. We did sprints and jogged to and from the beach, it was great. I always love a good workout. Then we took showers and took to the beach for about 3 hours. Matt ended up looking like a lobster by the time we were done (silly boy didn’t put any sunscreen on) but we had a great time relaxing.
We are now in the middle of making our way to Sarasota to stay with some of Matt’s parents’ friends. We cant wait to not live in a car! After taking the scenic route to a little town on the beach of Florida, we stopped for some more sea food and then kept driving to a city called Perry. We pulled into another trusty Wal-Mart for a halfway decent night of sleep, let just say a bed has never sounded better!
We cant wait for what Sarasota has in store for us, and then we are off to Miami and Costa Rica! Beach here we come!
Until then, ciao bellas (and bellos?) !

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Photos

Kati at the Civil Rights Institute
This great museum was in Birmingham!

Florabama!
This is one of the many rooms in Florabama...good times!

Wine and Cheese in Destin
We had to use a McDonalds cup to enjoy our wine on the beach, but it just made the experience more enjoyable :)

Florabama
Matt and I having a great time at Florabama!